


The Last Drop of Blood

by littlealex



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Gen, Post Season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-19
Updated: 2008-01-19
Packaged: 2017-10-12 07:13:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/122270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlealex/pseuds/littlealex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>This... this just isn't happening.</i> Dean deals with loss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Drop of Blood

It's been hours.

Not that Dean would know how many, but from the way his back and ass feel, he knows he must have been sitting there for a while. That numbness, though, is nothing compared to the numbness in his mind, the disbelief that has set in, because it just can't be true. Never mind that he had held his brother in his arms as the life slipped from his body. Never mind that he could feel no resistance in Sam's muscles as he had laid him on the ratty old mattress. It just can't be true. It can't be real. This... this just isn't happening.

Every now and then, Bobby makes a noise in the other room. It's a shuffling sort of noise, and then the spell breaks. It's no longer a bad dream, it's no longer possible that Sam's just resting and that soon enough he'll wake up and ask Dean why he was watching him sleep; it's real. The noise falling on his ears feels like daggers cutting through his skin and he has to close his eyes tight, or else he'll cry again. It doesn't matter that his eyes are red-raw from crying, or that his sleeves are perpetually damp from mopping up all the tears, or that his throat aches every time he swallows because hiding sobs hurts more than letting them out; the tears never seem to run out. They're always there, hiding behind his eyelids, and the smallest thing can set them flowing again.

This time, Bobby gets up. The chair scrapes against the wooden floorboards noisily, and Dean shifts in his seat, straightens his back, and winces as the chair nudges his aching tailbone. Bobby's footsteps seem to echo around the room - not to mention inside Dean's head - and come to rest at the doorway beside Dean. Dean refuses to look away from Sam's body. His fingers reach up absently to curl around the pendant on his necklace and he speaks in a quiet voice.

"What do you want, Bobby?"

"Dean, don't you think... you should do something? Take a shower, maybe?"

Dean hadn't noticed, but his fingers are still colored with Sam's blood, from where he found the fatal wound - the moment he realized that the knife hadn't missed its mark but hit it spot-on. The flash of memory sears through his mind and he looks down, fingers outstretched and shaking in front of him, and he wonders where else Sam's blood is. The first place he notices is his jeans, a dark red and crusted streak and he jumps up, the chair crashing to the ground behind him and it's all too much. His fingers curl into fists and he presses them to his temples. The tears would come, but he tries to fight them. They're more powerful than any demon and he's tired, sick to death of trying to keep them back. But he can't let them take over. Not this time.

He whips around to look at Bobby. The other man's face is a mixed expression of concern and pity, and Dean just wants to punch him. Punch him like he punched the wall, busted a hole in the poor excuse for timber, but he doesn't do that, either.

"Fucking hell, Bobby." It's frustration talking, though it sounds like anger, his voice hoarse from raw emotion. His fingernails dig into his palms so hard he should be bleeding, but he doesn't care right now. It isn't Bobby's fault, of course, but that doesn't help the way all the white noise that's been hiding - the numb thought that maybe the pale body on the mattress was going to spring to life - rushes past his eardrums like the blood rushing through his veins.

That doesn't make it any easier to swallow, and when Bobby reaches out to put a firm hand on his shoulder Dean snaps; shrugs him off so hard he can feel the tendons in his neck freeze and he takes a step back, hands at shoulder height to show that, no, he isn't really about to kill Bobby. Not that he doesn't want to.

"Dean," Bobby tries again, though Dean's not really sure why, because he can barely hear the other man over the noise in his mind, and what does come through is just an invasion. His mind is here with his brother - with Sammy, and just because someone else is talking to him doesn't change that. "Some water might help," he says, slowly. "Wash away the cobwebs. You run the shower, I'll go get us some food -"

Bobby's cut off, though. Dean shoves him against the wall, at the same time gritting his teeth hard enough to add a headache to the jumbled up mess already in his mind.

"I'm not leaving him, Bobby, you got that?" Dean spits in the other man's face, his features dark and set in a stubborn, defiant look that most people tend to back down from. This time isn't any different, and Bobby holds his hands up as Dean had a moment ago, an apologetic gesture but Dean can see the look in his eyes that says, 'I was only trying to help.'

Dean knows Bobby means well; worst of all, he knows he's right.

The blood on his hand burns, even though he's not looking at it now, and he lets go of Bobby's shirt - his fingers aching from the grip - and takes a brief glance over at his brother. In the few seconds his eyes are on Sam, he can almost believe that everything is still all right. Even though there's a part of him that knows that's not the point of the exercise, he holds onto the stupid belief for just a moment. Just while he speaks, because otherwise he'll lose his nerve and never leave the room.

"All right," he says, voice quiet now, but still hard and resolute, because that's all he's ever known how to be, and he nods before looking over at Bobby. "I'll take the damn shower. But you're staying right here. Sitting in this chair, and I swear to god so much as a hair moves on Sammy, I'll kill you. Don't think I won't."

Without another word, Bobby sits, and after a brief hesitation - more of a reflexive turn towards the bed - Dean leaves the room, every step away from his brother like a twisted knife in his gut.

It hasn't sunk in yet, of course. Dean might have been sitting there for god knows how long, staring at the cold, dead body of his younger brother, but that doesn't mean any of it has made sense to him yet. He hasn't done any processing yet, and while there is a certain allure in the idea of moving around - of washing away the proverbial cobwebs - Dean knows it will just throw everything into sharp relief.

He isn't wrong.

The bathroom isn't particularly white, but it once was. Even against the grimy tiles, the deep, dried red color his brother's blood on his hands is such a startling contrast it sends a shiver down Dean's spine. He runs the water - scalding hot as though that might help scrub away his emotions as well as the blood - and it doesn't help to see streaks of the same red on the clothes he piles in the corner of the room.

Soon, the bathroom is full of steam, and he can barely see in front of him as he steps underneath the hot water in one fluid movement. Sure, the water might be burning him - stinging through the cold numb exterior to his blood - but it hasn't hit him yet. It's only when the water mixes with Sam's dried blood on his hand that Dean feels everything unravel around him.

The water burns, but his tears are hotter; rolling one after the other over his cheeks, blurring his vision slightly as he rubs his hands together and watches, dumb and paralyzed, as the blood washes away, sliding off his skin before dripping into the bath beneath him, swirling around his feet on the porcelain and finally trickling down the plug hole. Easy as that. Just like washing dirt off his hands after digging up a grave - it's that simple. Every trace of blood is gone from his fingers and the tears might have started falling as soon as he stepped in the shower, but it's only once the last drop of blood slips down the drain and away from sight that it hits him.

Sam's gone.

His younger brother - the little shit who used to ask stupid questions. The one who used to ask him to tell him stories at bedtime, the one who got scared when the lights were out, the one who asked for Dean to sleep in his bed when there were branches scratching against the windows. It's not just someone he's known a few days, not an unfortunate casualty of a hunt; it's his brother. Not just his brother, but the person he had sworn to their father to protect. The one person he couldn't let down, let out of sight, and he's just lying there, in the other room, dead.

Dead. It sounds so final in his mind, and Dean can't stop the gasping sob that escapes his lips. He's not concentrating on the water falling on his shoulders, scalding his skin and making him look as though he's been sunburned, and he can't hear the echo of his sob through the bathroom, because it's all just dull aches compared to the digging, driving pain he can feel beneath his skin.

His thoughts race, one memory after another, and it's dizzying.

Dean's tenth birthday, when Sam made him a present out of the Yellow Pages. The time Sam broke his arm from tripping and falling into an abandoned campfire. Whispered secrets at night, silent fears expressed and Dean telling Sam that everything was going to be all right. Being reprimanded for playing their own version of catch (more like tag, but with a baseball) only when Dean accidentally hit Sam in the eye. Sam's first kiss, replayed in hushed tones in their bedroom at the time, and Dean's cocky response that he was so done with kissing. Their private jokes, the ones they could explain and the ones they couldn't. The things that made them laugh, the stupid television shows and the games they made up as children.

Their fights, the ones where Dean would always be the winner. The moment Dean had realized Sam was always going to be bigger than him, stronger but that didn't stop them. He'd given Sam a black eye the night he graduated high school, because it wasn't fair. "You think you're so much smarter, Sam," he'd yelled, loud because their dad wasn't there when Sam got his acceptance letter from Stanford, "just because you're going to college, but you want to live with the blinders on and that's fine by me. You know what dad and I are doing and you're just giving up. You're giving up, so good riddance, I don't want to see your ugly face around here anyway!"

Regrets come to him easily, but the good memories are harder to let pass.

It's as though he's taken everything for granted. All the moments, big and small; the ones that seemed to matter and the ones that didn't. The ones that hurt to think about and the ones that make him smile, they've all been wasted now. Their history and their shared memories no longer belong to the both of them. Nobody else knows what they've been through - not even their dad would understand. They were alone growing up, and their lives are intertwined, mixed up so tightly together that without Sam, Dean isn't sure he can carry his own weight. Even when Sam wasn't around, even when Dean was hunting alone, without his father, he always knew that there was someone else to share the load. Someone to turn to, who would help without hesitation. This life was never a burden to him before, but now that Sam's gone, Dean can't help but feel as though it's all crashing down around him and he'll never be able to pick up all the pieces.

He can feel it, though. The way he hiccups water into his lungs - he's working himself up. The knot at the pit of his stomach makes him sick and tendrils of tension spread from his spine into the base of his neck, shooting pain right to his temples. The tears rip apart his sinuses, and he can tell - without really feeling anything - that he's let himself dissolve into a sniveling, useless mound of flesh. He opens his eyes blearily and it's only then he notices he's sunk to his knees at the bottom of the bath, water cool now but still pounding over his shoulders and back and he feels ridiculous.

The cycle has started again, and he knows it's not going to be the last breakdown, but that doesn't mean he can just hide in the bath like a spineless worm forever. He has to get up; something has to be done, and even if he doesn't know what that is, sitting around in the bathroom crying isn't going to help. Nothing's going to help the gaping wound in his heart, but he might be able to find something to fill it for a while. A nice bottle of whiskey might help, and the thought helps him to his feet.

This weakness - the cry-baby stupidity of the last few moments - will be forgotten soon, replaced with a sour look and dark eyes, and it probably won't fool Bobby but he should know by now not to mention anything.

Dean dries himself off, making lists of things in his head as though he's trying to keep himself awake, and wraps the towel around his waist and moves into the other room to find some clean clothes. He's not trying to forget that Sam's dead - the word pierces his heart but he shakes it off with a shrug of his shoulders - but the blood is too much right now. He's got to pull himself together, convince Bobby he's all right, and think of something to do. He's not sure what, but he's got to think of something.

If Sam's gone, Dean's gone too, so there's got to be a way out of it.

**Author's Note:**

> My first Supernatural fic! Thanks to mawaridi for the advice, to antigonesgift for the nit-picking, and to gestaltrose and bluegemeyes for general feedback. Also thanks to moonlight69, who read it even though she doesn't like _Supernatural_ , and listened to my blather about it.


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